


Project Origami Money

by seekingferret



Category: Pedestrian at Best- Courtney Barnett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 18:26:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4070077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingferret/pseuds/seekingferret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Give me all your money, and I'll make some origami, honey</p>
            </blockquote>





	Project Origami Money

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cambusmore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cambusmore/gifts).



"So you have a new show coming up?"

"Yes," she answered. 

"When is it?"

"Week from Sunday. Wicker Park Field House."

"Awesome. I'll try to make an appearance. Will it be just your work, or are you sharing the show with...?"

"It's a collaboration with Benny. We're calling it Origami Money."

"Benny? Benny Lopez? The accountant Jenns was hooking up with?"

"That's the one. I originally contracted with him to provide technical assistance, but he's made so many critical contributions that I decided to list him as a co-creator. People underestimate the creativity of accountants, I have found."

"Do they?"

"Yes. Accountants are very creative people."

"I'll take your word for it. Origami Money? So you're providing the origami and he's providing the money?"

"The opposite in fact. I'm providing the money. Benny could hardly fundraise in the arts community, you know. He doesn't have the reputation for it. Now, I... when the great Hester Salamanca tells patrons that she needs help to mount her newest installation, the money comes rolling in. Especially once we started to share some initial details of the project with our early patrons. Everyone in High Chicago was begging me to take their money."

"How much did you need?"

"As much as they wanted to give, at first. Oh, there were limits, eventually. Benny explained to me that after a certain point there are diminishing returns on every shelter strategy. That's why you need a creative accountant. But for a while, the money poured in and we could keep saying more! more! more! For a while, our biggest problem was figuring out where to store it. We had some very specific requirements, you know? But Benny's a genius when it comes to this stuff."

"What kind of requirements?"

"Oh, you know, the usual. Armed guards, 24/7. Security cameras, motion detectors, enough space for three hundred thousand dollars in singles."

"THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS? So, uh, you were basically setting up a bank."

"Well, not technically. Benny was very careful about that. If we were set up as a bank, there would have been a whole lot more regulations, and most of those regulations would have defeated the whole purpose of the installation. And anyway, a bank has to return the money its depositors give it. Our patrons didn't ever want to see that money again."

"So what did you do with the money?"

"The money? You mean the actual cash? Oh, we burned it. We explored a number of other options first. We considered shredding it, but we still would have had to burn it afterward to meet regulations. I wanted us to try to dissolve it in acid, but it turns out that storing that much concentrated acid in one place is really, really dangerous. Too many safety regulations for us. So back to the old standby, incineration."

"Is that the exhibitition? You'll be burning three hundred thousand dollars in Wicker Park Field House? Damn! Really speaks to capitalism as the decaying institution it is."

"Oh, no, we already burned the money last week. Had to. We have very tight deadlines to get all the documentation ready in time for the show."

"What documentation?"

"We needed to send every donor a receipt confirming our tax exemption status. Otherwise they couldn't have claimed the deduction, and that would have defeated the purpose of the exhibit."

"The purpose of the exhibit being for your donors to claim a tax deduction for literally setting money on fire?"

"Not at all. It's against federal tax law to set fire to your own money and claim a tax exemption. I don't remember the exact Title, but Benny could quote it for you if you asked. And every single element of our installation is completely legal under federal, state, and local law. None of our donors set their money on fire. They gave money to a federally licensed 501c3 art nonprofit."

"And then you burned their money so they could claim the tax exemption."

"They could have claimed the tax exemption even if we hadn't set the money on fire. That's not the point."

"Then what is the point?"

"Our corrupt capitalist system is illuminated in its perversion. Money is supposed to represent value, abstracting the exchange of goods to allow their more efficient exchange. Instead we have a system where it is more intelligent, more sane, to burn the money than to exchange it for goods. But that's not enough! The system isn't happy if we merely burn the money! First, we have to perform the sacred rites of holy capitalism! First, we jump through the ritualistic hoops of the great temple of Mammon!

"Think back to our ancestors- in Mesopotamia, in the ancient Americas, in Africa, in India, you name it. In almost all of their civilizations they sacrificed animals as offerings to the Gods. We mock them for their ancient superstitions, and yet look at us! We who think of ourselves as the rational pinnacle of civilization have engineered a system that rewards its true believers not for burning calves and sheep to the Gods, but for burning an abstract representation of the value of calves and sheep! How truly insane we have become."

"Then what is the exhibition going to be?"

"Well, it's going to have a lot of elements. Multimedia presentation, you know? We'll have facsimile copies of all of the paperwork, for one thing. The originals were sent to our donors, so they could be fully compliant for audit purposes, but we've run off photocopies of the literally thirty thousand pages of paper we required to perform the sacrifice, and they will all be displayed. Do you know how much space thirty thousand pages of paper takes up? A whole corner of the room is just reams of paper."

"Wow."

"In another corner of the room, we'll be playing a videorecording of the incineration. It took ten hours. It might have been faster if we'd had access to a facility as large as the Federal Reserve does- did you know they have the largest facility in the world dedicated to combusting money?- but we made do with the incinerator we could get access to. I had to design special heat-shields to protect our camera from the heat. Usually the incineration company doesn't have any need to film their work."

"I guess not. Nobody wants to see a pile of burning garbage."

"No, indeed. Then the rest of the room will have Benny's presentation. He'll be delivering a seminar, "You too could save thousands by burning your money!" A really scathing indictment of the system, I think, and the best part is that it's the most boring thing imaginable. Benny and I have perfected the script. It's two hours of the most minute details of the federal tax code in excruciating detail. He's really brilliant. You're going to love it when you come."

"Uh... Hester, can I be honest with you?"

"Of course, honey. That's why we're friends."

"There's no way I'm going to this exhibit. To be honest, it barely sounds like art. And even if it's art, it's pedestrian at best."


End file.
